fish calculator

[shawmutt]

Hey all. I have a kind of silly question about the "inch per gallon" guideline. Is there a suggested max size for each fish? For example, I have a 29 gallon tank. According to the guide, I could have 2 oscars in this tank (12" in. max size time 2 is 24" of fish). I would never dream of doing that, but I'm curious. Is there a guideline for this (like the max size should be half the width of the tank, etc... , i.e. my tank is 12" wide, so a 6" fish would be happy). I'm just curious as to what my options are.

 

[reefrunner69]

The guideline really applies to bioload with an appropriate sized filter. I would look to the adult size of the fish and make sure the fish can easily turn around, so the tank has to be wider than the fish and a min of 4X the length of the adult sized fish.

 

[shawmutt]

excellent, exactly what I needed, thanks

 

[loganj]

Another thing to take into account is the biomass of the fish in question. IMO, the "inches per gallon" rule is accurate enough when you're talking about fish that stay small. An inch of neon tetra is not equal to an inch of grown oscar. A 29 with a good filtration system would probably handle 29 neons with no trouble. 2 12" oscars would overload it. The oscars, having much greater mass, generate much more waste. Make sense?

 

[justDIY]

heh, I saw an 8" oscar in a 10 gallon tank before, funny as heck ... too bad it was cruel for the fish

the oscar didn't seem to mind much, it obvisuly had been living in there for some time to get so big